The Poets' Snakes. 8 1 



This idea, that the young vipers killed their mothers 

 before coming into the world themselves, is one of great 

 antiquity, and parricides, who were punished by the 

 ancients by drowning, were sewn up in sacks, in which, as 

 appropriate company for such criminals, some vipers had 

 previously been put. Nor is the fiction by any means 

 exploded, for in parts of England it is still believed that 

 the adder which brings forth its young alive, and does 

 not, like the harmless (< grass-snake," lay eggs is killed by 

 her progeny. How this happens rural superstition can have 

 only the vaguest notion, for another, which contradicts it, 

 namely, that the young adders always take refuge inside 

 their mother if suddenly startled, exists simultaneously 

 with it. 



However, to return to the snakiness of human passions. 

 Maternal anguish has her "torturing snakes." Remorse 

 carries " a whip " (Southey) made of them, and can " dart 

 poison through the conscious heart " (Akenside) : Super- 

 stition is (in Shelley) a " hundred-forked " snake " insatiate ; " 

 Fierce debate (in Sackville) " deadly full of snaky heare ; " 

 Conscience is " a stinging worm," with the " viper fear " 

 (Green), and the " adder of disgrace " (Dodd) is " an undying 

 serpent " calling (Shelley) " her venomous brood to their 

 nocturnal task." Error "serpent error wandering" of 

 Milton has a " poisonous serpent head ; " and in Cowper 



" Sing, muse (if such a theme so dark, so long, 

 May find a muse to grace it with a song), 

 By what unseen and unsuspected arts 

 The serpent Error twines round human hearts, 

 Tell where she lurks, beneath what flowery shades, 

 That not a glimpse of genuine light pervades, 

 The poisoning, black, insinuating worm 

 Successfully conceals her loathsome form." 



So, too, Pride the cause of error : 



1 ' Though various foes against the truth combine, 

 Pride above all opposes her design, 



F 



